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Dock Electrocution
Location: Columbia, South Carolina Date: June 9, 1991 Story On June 9, 1991 in Columbia, South Carolina, Chrissy Morton was hanging out at a friend's house while her family worked on their dock at the lake behind their house. "My father, my grandfather, and Reed were putting an electric boat lift on our dock," Chrissy remembers. Her brother, Reed, their father, Richard, and their grandfather, Leland, were in the lake working on the dock. They had extension cords running their electric saws and the boat lift. They had the holes pre-drilled before they put the lift in the water, so that there wouldn't be any electricity on it. When Richard was having trouble getting the last bolt in, Reed came in to help. Leland was going to lower the boat lift down a little when he accidentally stepped on a faulty extension cord that wasn't plugged in a ground-fault interrupter outlet, sending an electrical current to the dock and into Reed's body. Chrissy could hear Reed screaming and ran to see what the problem was. "My brother just had a dazed look on his face. I didn't know if he had been cut or if he hammered his thumb," said Chrissy. Leland unplugged the lift, causing an electric shock on Reed. Horrified, Chrissy ran to a neighbor's house and asked them to call 911, while Richard and Leland tried to help get Reed out of the water. "Seeing Reed in the condition that he was in, I was petrified. I didn't know what to think and really what to do," Leland remembered. Within minutes, the Richland County EMS boat was dispatched from three miles away. Lexington County medic fire units were also dispatched to the scene. Leland and Richard were moving the unconscious Reed out of the water and two neighbors helped them lift him to the bank. "When I came back down with the blankets, I was terrified. I didn't know if he was dead or unconscious," said Chrissy. As they put the blankets below him, Keri Pitts, a nearby visitor, rushed to help. She checked for his pulse, couldn't find one, and started CPR. "We continued, it seemed forever, but Reed was not responding. And I wanted to quit, I know he's dead, and things we had planned to do that weren't gonna get done flashed through my mind," said Richard. Within 10 minutes of the call, paramedic Warren Perry got to the scene in the rescue boat. "We found a fifteen-year-old male unconscious, non-breathing patient," Perry said. Later, paramedic Gary Waller arrived with advanced life support equipment and found that Reed's heart had stopped. They defibrillated him and checked his pulse, but he still didn't have one. "We hit him again at 300," said Waller. "I went from hope to complete despair. One of the things I remember going through my mind was, "where would Reed want to be buried,'" said Richard sadly. He was still in V-fib and the paramedics shocked him again. Then he had a pulse. "You have your son back. That's what you think at that moment, just because he's got a pulse. And there were so many things ahead that I wasn't prepared for," remembers Richard. "Soon as we got him in the back of the ambulance, I noticed that he wasn't breathing. So we shocked him again," said Waller. During the 15-minute ride to Lexington County Medical Center, he suffered another arrest and had to be shocked a fifth time. "I once was asked, 'If you had a wish, what would it be,' I wish not to have to bury my children," said Richard. At the hospital, Reed was put on a respirator and stabilized, but remained in a coma. His mother, Patricia, came as soon as she heard what had happened. "You never expect to see your child disabled. But you cling to the hope that it won't be the end result and you pray and pray," said Patricia. His parents stayed by his bedside and kept telling him that they loved him. After 48 hours, he began to regain consciousness. "He was breathing on his own and they said, 'Is there anything that you want?' There were two things. I don't remember which one was first. One was a Big Mac and the other was a new set of irons. I'm delirious with joy. That's as normal as you can get. You've got a fifteen-year-old who wants his toys and to eat," said Richard. Within three weeks, Reed had completely recovered. "It's a shock to me to realize what had happened. When I did, it's unbelievable that I survived, and I can still do the things I want to do," said Reed. "The most positive benefit we can get from this tragedy would be if through CPR training, someone else's life is spared," said Richard. "I thank God every day that things have turned out for the best and it's brought our family closer together," says Chrissy. "Being able to love your parents and to say 'I love you' to them is the most important thing I got out of this," Reed stated. Category:1991 Category:South Carolina Category:Electrocution